I got most of our desk in that play in BA yesterday. I traded it fairly well and managed to keep a significant core for most of the down move. However, watching back my tape and seeing how this is on my list of plays I have to load the boat in I really wussed out; this was a play … Read More
Paying For Information
Last Friday most experienced guys in our desk traded RIMM on the open. The moves where fairly violent and most of us got ripped up at first. It seemed the stock was crowded with big traders and most levels didn’t hold that cleanly. The risk in most plays ended up being about 2-3 times larger than one would have thought. … Read More
Finally the Turn?
It seems that we are finally starting to turn. The overly talked pullback may be on its way. It started with the SPYs gaping down Monday with a failed attempt at filling the gap. Yesterday we closed below the trading range we had established for a while. Today we got confirmation by cleanly taking out yesterdays low and holding for … Read More
Learning to Take Pain
In our training program we (over)emphasize finding opportunities where the risk is one unit and the reward is at least five units. Most of the setups our new traders learn (50% I would guesstimate) are opportunities where the risk is literally one to two pennies. If overly abused, these setups can progressively hinder the ability of the trader to pull … Read More
What Would you Do?
Today our best morning idea was to play $VLO off the $18 secondary offering price. From the daily chart you can see that the stock had just came off about 20% in the last 2 days and figured the underwriters of the offering would help support the beaten up stock down at this level. The play was to buy at … Read More
Question From a New Trader
I received the following inquiry from one of our talented new traders while going over our mentoring spreadsheet. “I took a pretty big rip late in the day in this stock and wanted to know if I got out of it the right way; there was a battle between 48.12 and 48.15 and I paid for 100 at 48.16 when … Read More
SPYs Holds Below 90
Last night I was hoping we would gap down near 90, get tested and hold so that we could have a strong day. I did get the gap I wanted and was trading lightly in premarket with the idea of buying into the gap. Unfortunately, the retail sales data at 8:30am was worse than expected and the SPYs traded cleanly … Read More
Learning From Other Traders
New traders at SMB can learn from themselves, their mentor and their peers. Here at SMB we have many guys that are obsessed with trading. Every chance we get, we talk about different plays, how we traded them, how much size we thought was reasonable, and how we could have traded that play differently. I want to highlight the importance … Read More